Polymeric films are conventionally made shrinkable by stretching and treating them so that they will not shrink back until subsequently heated or otherwise treated to make them shrink. Such films are conventionally used for packaging various objects. When a sheet of film or other material is shrunk tightly against an object, or part of it, any image preprinted on the sheet will be distorted where the body shape has caused uneven shrinkage.
Distortion of preprinting on shrink film has long presented a problem in the packaging industry. The problem can be minimized by positioning the printed area of the film over a flat or cylindrical surface where the film shrinkage is not distorted by the surface shape, or by avoiding use of images that suffer markedly from distortion. However, that leaves many cases where preprinted image distortion during film shrinkage remains a problem.